Inside Music with Melinda Newman

Taylor Swift new 'Red' song goes through 50 shades: Listen

Title track from her new album laments a lost love

By Melinda Newman Tuesday, Oct 2, 2012 4:20 PM

Taylor Swift's "Red" single cover

Credit: Big Machine

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The drip toward the Oct. 22 release of Taylor Swift’s fourth studio album, “Red,” continues. Today, we get a lyric video for the title track.

“Red” is about —say it with me— a love gone wrong. Musically, it falls closer to the upbeat pop of “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” than the quiet country beauty of ballad “Begin Again.” In fact, the only thing remotely country about “Red” is the banjo that periodically appears in the tune.

[More after the jump...]

The song uses the color wheel to describe the seasons of Swift’s relationship. “Losing him was blue like I’ve never known/Missing him was dark grey, all alone/Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met/But loving him was red.”

“Red” builds from a slow start to a full-out rocker musicially(I use that as a relative term), complete with guitar solo. However, Swift’s vocal delivery remains pure pop, including the popular stutter step on the word “red.” Her Sonically, it’s more crowded than the two other selections we’ve heard from the album so far and the production sounds a little retro.

What do you think of “Red?”